There's a lot of randomness in what gets traction on a site like this based on whether or not the story clicks with the first few readers. A few people seeing it and upvoting it early can be the difference between it getting momentum and going on to be successful or totally dying. If the first few people don't upvote, the post loses more and more momentum and dies quickly (even if it was good content).

It's sort of like a job interview at a big tech company. Being qualified isn't enough. Lots of good people get turned down based on random factors like who got assigned the interview or what random screening question they got asked. But they might apply again later, get a different interviewer or question and get an offer.

Second one looks like a spam.

We do what our friends do and upvote what is already upvoted. When the two identical links got posted, the first few drive-by voters opted for the first rather than the second. Other late clickers simply upvoted what was already upvoted. The derogatory term for that is "hivemind" and the effect is fairly common on Reddit or any other social media with anonymous users.

The word 'freelance' captures the dreamers who want to fire the boss. This seems like potentially a story of how someone did this so it arouses curiosity.

one is on the front page. the other was not. more people vill upvote if also others do. social proof.